


He's Gonna be Fine, Okay?

by dyingpoet



Series: Sprace one shots [53]
Category: Newsies - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Era, Fluff and Humor, Hispanic Spot Conlon, Illnesses, Italian Racetrack Higgins, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-19 17:09:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20213317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dyingpoet/pseuds/dyingpoet
Summary: Romeo gets sick after making Race drag him to Brooklyn, and Spot is a hell of a lot closer than Jack





	He's Gonna be Fine, Okay?

**Author's Note:**

> based off of a prompt on tumblr!! thanks anon!!!

Romeo had refused to leave Race’s side the whole morning, which was a warning sign Race hadn’t paid much attention to if he was being honest. He was sort of half asleep and the kid clinging to him didn’t seem all that out of the ordinary as he dragged his feet all the way to distribution.

When he asked shyly and quietly to sell with Race in Brooklyn that day, Race agreed sort of mindlessly. Sometimes the little ones got homesick and sold with the older boys to help them feel better. Albert promised to let Jack know Romeo was with him and the two of them headed across the bridge.

Almost immediately after setting foot in Brooklyn though, everything started to go to shit.

“Racer?”

Race hummed in answer when Romeo tugged on his sleeve. He’d been getting cut a few papes short the last few days and he was double checking they hadn’t scammed him at the gate again.

“Race?”

Romeo tugged harder and Race stopped counting and looked down. “What is it, kid?”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth Race was kneeling down and pressing the back of his hand to Romeo’s forehead. The kid looked like a good gust of wind could knock him over. How hadn’t he noticed that before?

“Woah, what’s goin’ on bud? You feelin’ okay?” he asked softly, and he felt worry start to build up in his chest when Romeo stared back at him with glassy eyes. “What’s wrong?”

The kid’s face twisted and Race took in again how pale he was, and sweating too. He honestly didn’t have an idea how he managed to slip past Jack looking like that.

“My stomach hurts,” Romeo whispered through gritted teeth, “an-and my head, too.”

He stumbled forward into Race’s chest a little, and Race picked him up quickly, a steadying hand on his back starting to rub small circles almost immediately. “Hey, it’s gonna be okay, you’se just a little sick okay? I’m gonna bring ya to Spot, he’s good about sick kids.”

Romeo was shaking up a storm but he still stiffened at the sound of Spot’s name. “We ain’t goin’ back to ‘Hattan?”

Race was already walking toward Spot’s usual selling spot and was trying his best not to jostle the kid too much as he did. “Nah, that’s a lot farther than Brooklyn lodging. Don’t worry, Spot ain’t scary as everybody says, he’s real nice actually.”

The kid didn’t say anything, unconvinced, and Race was honestly just shooting off at the mouth to try and keep Romeo from getting anxious on top of being sick. Spot actually was kind of scary if you didn’t know him, but it wouldn’t help Romeo any to tell him that.

* * *

“Okay well, he’s runnin’ a fever.”

Spot was kneeling down at the head of his bed, where he’d put Romeo once he and Race got him back to Brooklyn lodging. They hadn’t put him in the bunkroom just in case whatever he had could spread.

“Is he gonna be okay?” Race asked, watching Spot pull out a box from under his bed and start rifling through it before looking back at the kid. He was asleep, but still sweating like nothing else, and he kept wincing in his sleep like he was dreaming about something awful. “It ain’t that bad, right?”

He watched Spot shake his head and pull a bottle out of the box, pushing the rest back under his bed. Medicine it looked like.

“He’s gonna be okay, he ain’t been sick long enough for it to be bad.”

Spot sounded sure of himself, putting the bottle on the table next to the bed and kneeling down next to Race again. “You ain’t feelin’ sick, are ya?”

Race shook his head and Spot sighed before nodding his head. "Gracias a Dios por eso al menos."

“What?” Race asked, cocking his head at the Spanish and trying sluggishly to make sense of it in his head. He didn’t know much but sometimes he could catch on to what Spot was saying. 

“Nothin’,” Spot dismissed, standing up and grabbing Race’s forearm as he did the same. “C’mon, we gotta get some cold towels for his head, and I’m gonna see if I can find a bottle of seltzer. He needs to drink stuff.”

Race let himself be pulled out of the room, turning to give one more worried glance at Romeo before they were headed down the hall. “This is all my fault.”

“No it’s not.”

The grip on his arm dropped, and Race could only see the back of Spot’s head but he could  _ feel  _ him rolling his eyes. 

He was digging through a trunk near the door to the bunk room, and pulled out a couple towels. “You didn’t make him catch nothin’, and kids are good at hiding shit if they wanna be. Once he got real sick he told ya, right?”

Race caught the towel Spot tossed him and followed him to the washroom. “Yeah.”

“Exactly,” Spot said, already running the cold water tap in one of the sinks, “once he cut the act you caught on right away. Ya did what ya could.”

The water running over the towels filled the silence, and Race shifted back and forth on his heels as he handed Spot his dry towel and accepted the freezing, wrung out one. The kid was still his brother, and he hauled him all the way to Brooklyn when he was sick, and now he was away from his family too. It still felt an awful lot like his fault.

A hand on his shoulder pulled him out of his thoughts, and he blinked quickly and caught Spot’s stare. “What?”

“He’s gonna be fine,” Spot reassured, voice steady and holding. “And you didn’t do nothin’ wrong.”

Race swallowed thickly and nodded. “Yeah, yeah okay.”

“Good, now let’s get these to the kid.”

* * *

Race’s head jerked up for what felt like the hundredth time, and he moved forward quickly to make sure Romeo was okay. To make sure his chest was still rising and falling steadily. 

It was, and Race let himself yawn before sitting back against against the table next to the head of Spot’s bed, knees pulled up to his chest. “Spot, ya better get back soon or I swear, sarai tu quello a letto invece che il bambino.”

“I heard that.”

The door creaked open and Race’s head snapped to see Spot walking in, a bowl of soup in one hand and a glass of what looked like seltzer in another. “How is he?”

“He don’t feel as hot as before,” Race answered, looking back at Romeo and feeling his heart seize up again, “and he ain’t shaking as bad as before.”

Spot’s shadow fell over him and Romeo, and he watched him feel the kid’s head again before settling down next to Race. He still had the soup in his hand though, the seltzer on the table above Race’s head, and Race looked at him curiously. “You gonna wake him up to give him that?”

Spot shook his head and shoved the bowl into Race’s chest. “It’s for you dumbass, he won’t be able to keep down much more than water for a while anyway.”

It had been about eight hours since Race had brought Romeo to Spot, and the night before he’d barely gotten any sleep, hence the jerking awake after dozing off now and then. And yeah, with fall starting to turn toward winter, he  _ had  _ been cutting a few meals so the younger kids could get a little stronger, but he didn’t feel right eating with a sick kid right in front of him.

“Not hungry,” he said, and got the bowl shoved right back into his chest when he tried to hand it back to Spot.

“Bullshit, you look like ya lost weight since I last saw ya, and I can  _ hear  _ your stomach growling, dumbass,” Spot shot back in that weird sharp edged, mean way he had of showing concern.

When Race stared defiantly back at him instead of eating Spot raised his eyebrows in challenge. “Race, I’se gotten more stubborn kids than you to eat, don’t make me fight ya on it.”

Normally Race would have gone a couple rounds back and forth with him before giving in, but he was tired and hungry and the soup smelled really, really good. So he held eye contact and ate a spoonful. “Happy?”

Spot shrugged and a ghost of a smirk crossed his face. “No, but I ain’t gonna hit ya now.”

“You’se one hell of a host, ya know that?”

“Sure do.”

Race felt Spot watching him satisfyingly while he ate, and he kept his eyes glued firmly to the floor as he did, feeling a warmth build up in his chest from the attention. It was the only reprieve from the constant ache of worrying he’d been dealing with all day. 

After he finished he put the bowl up on the table and the two of them watched Romeo sleep in silence for a few minutes. He’d woken up a few times, never for more than half an hour, but Spot had gotten him to get down some of the medicine and some of the seltzer. His fever hadn’t broken yet but the cold towels had helped get it down. There wasn’t much more they could do besides let him rest.

“You had Silver go to ‘Hattan right? She told Jack ‘bout us?” Race asked abruptly, looking over Spot, who nodded.

“Yeah, she said you two’d be here ‘til the kid got good enough to get across the bridge okay. She said Jack was okay with it, wanted the kid to get better’n all.”

“‘Kay good,” Race murmured, and he let that small weight come off his shoulders too. He still had to figure out how to make up for the money he lost by not selling today, and the money he might lose tomorrow if the kid was still too sick to be left alone. 

His head started lolling forward as his thoughts slowed down, and once his eyes shut he jerked his head up again and he heard Spot sigh.

“You can sleep, y’know that right?”

Race shook his head and shifted, letting his legs stretch out in front of him and across Spot’s lap. The other didn’t comment but moved a little so Race was more comfortable. “I wanna wait a little longer, see if he wakes up again before it gets too late.”

“It already  _ is  _ too late,” Spot argued, “and keepin’ yourself up all night ain’t gonna do any good for him in the morning when he does wake up and you’se too tired to see how he’s doin’.”

By the time the tail end of that sentence rolled around Race’s eyes were fluttering shut again, and the buzz of exhaustion in his head was keeping them shut that time.

“Get some sleep Tonio, he’ll be okay.”

* * *

A small hand shoving at his head was what Race woke up to the next morning, and he almost shoved it away before the memory of the day before hit him, and his eyes shot open to see Romeo leaning over the side of the bed.

“Racer? You awake?”

His small voice didn’t sound as shaky, and Race nodded, taking him in before answering. He didn’t look as pale and he wasn’t shaking at all now. “Yeah, how ya feeling kid? Better than yesterday?”

Romeo nodded, curls bouncing as he rubbed tiredly at his eyes. “Yeah, Spot gave me more medicine when I woke up. He said to tell ya to he’d be back ‘round noon, that we should wait ‘til then to go home.”

Race nodded, twisting to crack his back both ways. The floor hadn’t been kind. “See, he ain’t that scary is he?”

The kid looked like he was thinking about it hard for a moment, and Race felt himself physically relax at how much better he looked than the day before. “Yeah, he was pretty nice I guess.”

“Yeah well, he’s a softie at heart, but ya didn’t hear it from me.”

Romeo giggled weakly, and Race got up to sit on the other side of the bed next to him, figuring it was safe now that he was feeling better. “Wanna hear a story, kiddo?”

He got an enthusiastic nod in return, and he threw an arm over the smaller boy, letting him curl into Race’s side as he started to speak.

“Okay, so ‘bout three years ago, me and Jack was walkin’ back from Jacobi’s…”

* * *

“Tell Jack to not let him sell by himself for a while, and make sure he ain’t skippin’ any meals or nothin’.”

Race accepted the bottle of medicine Spot handed him, tucking it carefully into his pocket and putting a hand on Romeo’s shoulder as he did. “Got it, thanks a lot Spotty.”

Spot waved him off, and Romeo looked up at him before speaking softly. “Thank you Spot, for lettin’ me use your bed and everythin’.”

Ruffling the kid’s hair, Spot grinned softly and Race was reminded why all the Brooklyn kids where so loyal to him. He really did care about them.

“Don’t mention it kid, just don’t go makin’ it a habit, yeah?”

Romeo nodded and looked up questioningly at Race, who sighed and raised his eyebrows at Spot. “Well we’ll be gettin’ back. Unless I get sick or somethin’ I’ll probably see ya tomorrow.”

“I’d bet money even if you was sick I’d still see ya tomorrow,” Spot said with an eye roll, and he was one hundred percent right.

But Race just grinned and tipped his cap exaggeratedly before steering Romeo around by the shoulder toward the bridge. “Ya know me too well.”

“I do,” Spot grumbled, and he and Race held eye contact for another full second before Race turned away with Romeo. “See ya.”

“See ya.”

They both walked in opposite directions then, and Race definitely did get sick by the next morning, and definitely still came to Brooklyn. Spot smacked him over the back of the head pretty hard, and Race just laughed. 

**Author's Note:**

> yo this was written after i spent an hour writhing in pain from cramps, and then downed two monsters,, it aint my best work :^)
> 
> b u t leave kudos/comments if u can!!! please!!! my tumblr is @dying-poet if u wanna send me prompts and stuff on there too!!!


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